India special: Embracing GM crops

“WESTERN protesters holding a cup of Starbucks have no business protesting against GM,” says Kiran Sharma. Rich Europeans can afford to reject the technology, he says, “here, we don’t have a choice.”

Sharma believes passionately that GM crops can go a long way towards tackling hunger in the developing world. But he is no Monsanto stooge. Sharma is a scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, southern India. ICRISAT is a network of non-profit research institutes in developing countries, funded by donations from rich nations and international agencies.

GM succeeds where conventional breeding cannot, says Sharma, because it can produce traits, such as disease resistance and drought tolerance, that do not exist in a crop or its wild relatives. Bringing in genes from other species is the only way to improve these crops. “We are trying to give breeders something they don’t have,” he says.

India embraced GM in March 2002 when the government’s Genetic Engineering Approval Committee gave the green light for three varieties of Bt cotton. The crops, owned by a Monsanto subsidiary called the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (MAHYCO), have an added bacterial gene for a toxin that kills a major caterpillar pest called the American bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera). So far, Bt cotton is the only GM crop grown commercially in India.